Democrats Criticize Removal of 2 Staff Members

By CARL HULSE

Published: February 17, 2005

Two senior staff members of the House ethics committee are being removed from their jobs by the new chairman, drawing criticism from Democrats and others who said the changes reflected continued retaliation for actions taken last year against the majority leader, Tom DeLay.

The committee chairman, Representative Doc Hastings of Washington, has decided not to retain John Vargo, staff director and chief counsel of the panel responsible for enforcing House rules, along with Paul Lewis, spokesman for the panel, which admonished Mr. DeLay last year in three instances.

Ed Cassidy, chief of staff to Mr. Hastings, said the chairman was following the standard practice of choosing new senior staff members to ''ensure that a new chairman and the entire committee staff can work together cooperatively, confidentially and productively.''

''Anyone suggesting these decisions were made for partisan reasons is flat-out wrong,'' Mr. Cassidy said.

But Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said the move appeared to be retribution after a decision by Republicans to oust the previous chairman and two other Republican members of the panel who acted against Mr. DeLay of Texas. House Republicans also changed the rules to make it harder to initiate an ethics inquiry.

''This latest decision to remove nonpartisan staff shows that the Republican leadership is simply not interested in having a credible ethics process,'' Mr. Hoyer said.

The two staff members had been with the committee since the late 1990's and had worked under previous Republican chairmen, including Representative Joel Hefley of Colorado, who was replaced last month at the direction of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

Mr. Cassidy said that Mr. Hastings would work with Representative Alan B. Mollohan of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the committee, which is evenly divided, in choosing a new chief counsel and other staff members.

Mr. Mollohan said his preference would have been to keep the staff members, whom he said had done an outstanding job.